Banking

  Bloomberg Kenya’s shilling has depreciated 3.5% to dollar this year after a seven-month losing streak, adding to a 7.8% loss last year. The currency of East Africa’s largest economy reached its weakest closing level of 113.09 per dollar and was trading little changed in Nairobi. The biggest monthly decline was in August when it weakened 1.3%, while July-September was ...

  Bloomberg Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc is preparing to launch a fund that provides debt financing to Asian start-ups in an effort to win investment-banking business through subsequent initial public offerings. Japan’s largest lender will start a $300 million fund early next year after upsizing its first joint-venture fund earlier this year, Chief Executive Officer Hironori Kamezawa said in ...

  Bloomberg Thailand’s central bank held its benchmark interest rate unchanged for a 13th straight meeting to assess how much risk the omicron variant poses to a fragile economic recovery. The Bank of Thailand’s (BOT) rate setting committee voted unanimously to hold the one-day bond repurchase rate at a record-low 0.5%, as predicted by all 20 economists in a Bloomberg ...

  Bloomberg ING Groep NV will take an unspecified fourth-quarter charge to exit French retail banking, its latest move to pull out of non-core European markets. The Amsterdam-based lender has reached a deal with local unions on a social plan for 460 employees, according to a statement. The bank, which is waiting for approval of its plan by the French ...

  Bloomberg Union Bank of the Philippines will buy Citigroup Inc’s consumer banking assets in the Southeast Asian country for a cash consideration plus a premium of 45.3 billion pesos ($904 million). The deal covers the US firm’s local credit card, unsecured lending, deposit and investment businesses as well as Citicorp Financial Services and Insurance Brokerage Philippines Inc, Citigroup and ...

  Bloomberg The Bank of Spain more than doubled its forecast for inflation next year but still sees it easing sharply after that to well below the 2% goal for the euro zone. The central bank raised its outlook for annual price increases to 3.7% in 2022 and then slightly reduced the projection for the following year to 1.2%. Inflation ...

  Bloomberg Traders are betting the Bank of England will look through risks from the omicron strain to hike its key interest rate above 1% next year for the first time since 2009. Money markets are now pricing 100 basis points of policy tightening from the UK central bank in Dec. 2022, according to sterling overnight index swaps. That would ...

  Bloomberg The Hungarian central bank raised effective interest rates for the sixth time in as many weeks to stem accelerating inflation. A day after Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced a freeze on mortgage rates — which will act as a break on monetary tightening from the central bank — policy makers raised the one-week deposit rate by 20 basis ...

  Bloomberg It led the world with inflation targeting, but New Zealand’s central bank (RBNZ) is no pioneer for women. The Reserve Bank has released its gender pay gap for the first time, revealing a gulf that’s more than twice the size of the shortfall in the nation’s public service as a whole. As at June 30, the average gender pay ...

  Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) could bolster liquidity in the banking system by selling yuan, which will help lower borrowing costs while stemming the currency’s gains, Nomura Inc. said. The central bank needs more aggressive steps to tackle China’s slowing economy, and swapping the yuan for foreign exchange is its best option, according to Nomura’s chief China ...